Maybe I should train for this stuff

When I sat down to develop my goals this year I had some pretty high hopes as to what I’d accomplish physical fitness-wise.

I’d planned on riding lots of hills and getting in lots of miles so that I could put some hurt on the Kitty at TBP – that didn’t work out.

I planned on losing 35lbs – that hasn’t happened.

I planned on running 5km 3 times / week – up to yesterday I’d run a TOTAL of 10km

I’d planned on swimming 1km 3 times / week – up to yesterday I’d been in a pool 3 times, and swam a total of 2.5km

The reason why I’d wanted to do the running and swimming was two-fold. One, I figured the extra cross-training would really help with the weight loss, and TWO, I was going to be entering a couple of triathalons this year.

Yesterday was the first. Open Water swim of 1.5km, Bike of 40km, and 10km run. (Olympic distance) I probably should have bowed out and done the sprint distance or something. I really wasn’t ready for this. However, I’d been giving the sprint distance friends of mine a rough time about not doing the Olympic. Guess I kind of hoped myself on that one.

My oldest boy kept me up until 1am Friday night – and even then I slept terribly. Not a good start. Up at 6am to get ready. It was hard rolling out of bed, but I managed. Unfortunately, it meant I was not thinking really sharp. I’d pay for that later.

Loaded my bike and gear (and this time I remember to grab my water bottle from the freezer. I’d put it in just before bed.) and headed out the door.

20 minutes down the road I remember I’ve forgotten my cleat covers. Normally not a big deal, but there’s a section between the swim transition area and where you can mount the bike that’s all sand and dirt for about 100 yrds. Speedplay pedals don’t do well in that crap. I called my wife and asked her to bring them for me. I called her a few minutes later when I remembered I’d forgotten a towel, too.

A little further and I realize I forgot to have any breakfast.

Got T1 set up, picked up my timing chip, etc. and then headed for T2 (the transition areas are 26km apart.) That’s where I realize that I don’t have any gels or powerbars or anything with me. Oh well, at least I’ve got some Gatorade, and it’s only going to be around 3 hrs…

Finally, it’s time, but my wife hasn’t gotten here yet. Oh well, no towel, no cleat covers. I’ll have to deal with it. I try to stay at the back at the start, as I know I’m not going to be fast in the water and don’t want to get kicked too much. No wind (how often does that happen in this country?!) so the water is like glass. One guy hits the water at the front and strikes out so fast that those on the shore can’t believe it. He ends up doing the swim in 17:46 I finish the swim in 36 minutes.

Bike time, my turn to shine. I drop the hammer. I’m trying to break the one hour mark on this one. Closest I’ve come in the past has been 1:08 for a 40km ITT (and that was a cycling TT, no swimming or running.) JohnnyE goes by me and calls out “catch ‘em in the hills!” I make sure that on the hills I really lay it down, and I catch lots of riders in the first 12km. They may have gotten out of the water before me, but I’ll be running before them! (and then I fully expect them to pass me on the run.)

At about the 15km mark I start catching and passing a lot of Sprint participants. Here is where I see my wife. She’s hanging out the window of the van, ringing a cow bell for me as I go by. I smile. Always amazes me how good it feels to have family watching, or friends cheering.

This is dangerous. The sprint participants typically are riding mtn bikes and wearing ipods They don’t hear me calling “on your left” and are swerving all over the road. It forces me out of the aero bars a lot. At the 20km mark there’s a 13% hill of about ¾ of a kilometre, and then a 90 degree left turn onto the main highway. Traffic is backed up most of the way down the hill, and I start passing vehicles on the left. Get to the intersection, hammer across into the main traffic lane and catch the eye of the SUV driver who turned at the same time as me and signal to move over to the shoulder. He gives me lots of room and I’m back down in the aero bars. 20 more km. I reach down for my water bottle and pop the lid to grab a drink.

You know, it’s not a good idea to freeze Gatorade in an insulated bottle unless you’re going to be out on the road for hours and hours and have more than one bottle with you. I squeezed as much liquid/Gatorade slush as I could into my mouth.

I’m in town now. I’ve conserved some energy on one of the big descents (where some people were hammering at 80km/hr, I held back and only did 65 and just coasted.) I’ve held 45km/hr across the flats. I’m close to the one hour mark. I hit the hard right hand turn that loops back on itself as I enter town – and get hit smack in the face by a headwind. Not a stiff one, about 15km/hr, but man, at this point it’s tough to hold speed. I hold speed through all the corners, leaning my TT bike hard. At one point I hit a little gravel in a corner and think I may have over-cooked this one and going down, but I stay up. The final stretch and I can hear my daughter ringing that cow bell from a block away. I smile some more, and sprint hard for the line.

As I approach the dismount area I’m coming up on another rider. I unclip my right leg, swing it over so that when I hit the dismount line I can start running. (or walking in the bike cleat way.) The guy in front of me hits the dismount line and locks ‘em up and swerves into the middle of the lane (he was on the far left.) I lock ‘em up. I feel the rear will lifting. The left hand crank hits my thigh on the way up, but I’m unclipped from it. I start running and save the bike from endoing. Sheesh! I hit the stop button on my bike computer. (The official times have all the transition times added to the bike.) My bike time is just under 1:03.

Now the run. I start out of the transition zone and immediately my calf muscles start cramping. Looks like I’ve pushed the bike a bit harder than I should’ve. Oh well, this should ease up. The first couple of hundred yards of the run are always the worst, right?

1km into the run and my calves are still cramping. Not full on cramps, just right there on the twitching edge where you know it could drop you to your knees at any time. I push on. I’m slow. I check my computer and I’m only doing 9km/hr, but I’m managing to keep my HR around 159.

2km and the cramping has eased, but my legs are tired. I can’t get any speed up. I try to increase the cadence, but my legs just won’t go. I tell myself just 8 more to go – and then I get passed by the first of many Olympic distance runners.

3km – a friend and organizer of the Fort McLeod triathalon catches me. I managed to kick up the cadence a bit to hang with him for a km before he runs off into the distance. HR is now mid 160’s.

Just before the turn around there’s a long hill of about 1km. I get passed by yet another Olympic distance participant at the bottom, but see my friend up ahead walking the hill. I figure if I can keep a good pace up the hill that I’ll catch him before the turn around.

Somehow, I manage to do just that – but my HR is over 170 now. As we turn around there’s a water station there and we walk through it while downing some Gatorade and water. I’m double-fisting the Gatorade in a hope of stopping the bonk and cramps from getting me. Off we go.

At km 6.5 my friend backs off. I’m on my own again. His pacing has really helped me to kick the speed up – I’ve managed 12km/hr for the last couple of k’s.

I get passed by some more folks.

8km – 2 to go. Holy cow this hurts! My body wants to walk. I won’t let it. Speed is down to 9km/hr again. I get passed by some people.

Less than a kilometre left. A member of our local cycling club who did the Sprint has walked down to the bottom of the hill, he crosses the road and starts running beside me, pacing me along, encouraging me – and then I hear that cow bell again. My daughter is yelling “there’s my Daddy!!” and ringing it as hard as she can. My wife and the twin boys are there beside her cheering. I start climbing this last hill.

Someone is a masochist, putting this hill here. It hurts. It’s not long, only a couple of hundred yards, but it’s fairly steep. I continue to speed up. I’m in my version of a full-out sprint now – only a couple of hundred yards left. People are cheering. I can hear JohnnyE screaming my name, one of my son’s has tried to pace me in for the last few hundred yards, but I drop him (revenge for his dropping me on a cycling hill climb.) As I cross the line they announce my name and I glance at the official clock – 2:51:10 A new personal best.

My running time was over an hour (1:06) I hurt all over. I know that’s only going to get worse over the next 24 hours. I enjoy the moment of being a finisher and chatting with my friends. Some people come up to congradulate me and they make a big deal out of my finish – I guess nobody can believe the fat guy did it.

I end up 15 of 26 men, 22 of 40 total. Right in the middle of the pack. Within a couple of minutes of moving up 6 or 7 spots. Lots of room to improve on the running, just need to do some of that stuff. Maybe I should do that before the next one I’ve got scheduled for the middle of August.